Steven Stamkos earns ultimate praise from Lightning coach despite 3-0 series hole

The Tampa Bay Lightning appeared to be one of the NHL’s most dangerous teams in the final weeks of the regular season. At one point in the season, the Lightning appeared to be in jeopardy of missing the playoffs, but they rode the hot hand of Nikita Kucherov and leadership of Steven Stamkos to secure the top Wild Card spot in the Eastern Conference.

That earned them a playoff date with the Florida Panthers, the Atlantic Division champions and the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference. The Panthers have won the first three games of the series, coming through with clutch efforts when each game was on the line.

Head coach Jon Cooper knows his team is up against it, as teams rarely come back from 3-0 deficits — although it happens more in the NHL than it does in any of the other sports. Cooper is clearly disappointed that his team is on the verge of seeing its season come to an end, but he has been very impressed with the way Stamkos has played against the Panthers.

“He has really led the way with this team especially when we probably didn’t have our A, B, or C game at the beginning last night,” Cooper said. “You’re so used to seeing him shoot the puck in the net from the flank on a one-timer but he can do so much more and last night was a perfect example of how he got engaged physically, how he was making plays, how he was helping will our team back into the position to win the game and, so, he’s just really grown as a player in all aspects of the game.”

Panthers appear ready to move on

The Panthers continue the playoff excellence they demonstrated a year ago when they made it all the way through to the Stanley Cup Final. While they lost that series to the Vegas Golden Knights, the Panthers demonstrated the ability to play their best hockey in the game’s most decisive stages.

Florida’s first three wins in the series have all been by razor-thin margins. They won Game 1 by a 3-2 margin, and they had to go to overtime to win Game 2 by the same score. When the series moved to the Amalie Arena in Tampa, the Lightning were more aggressive for large spurts, but the Panthers proved to be expert at counterpunching. They pulled out a 5-3 win on the road, using an empty-net goal to put the game away.

Steven Stamkos scored a tying goal for the Lightning in Game 3, but he could not wrest the momentum away from the hungry Panthers.

Cooper knows his team in a very challenging position as one more loss will allow the Panthers to advance.

“Which cliché do you want? It’s never over until it’s over. It is what it is. How many more of these do we have? The sun came up today. We look at the totality of this series. You look on the board. One team has a three and one team has a zero. What comes around goes around.”